The LIONS Creative MBA (cMBA)
Learn how to generate Lion-winning ideas with real-world impact, evaluate your own work through the eyes of the world’s best creative minds – and make work that drives results.
Next cohort starts 10 March 2025.
What is the LIONS cMBA?
cMBA stands for Creative MBA.
This is a 10-week digital course from LIONS, the organisers of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
The LIONS cMBA helps creatives and marketing professionals understand the tools, techniques and insights needed to deliver their most impactful work and become creative leaders in their own right.
Why invest in creativity?
The business case for creativity is proven. From our research, we know that brands that predict higher growth for 2024 are 6x more likely to prioritise creativity, and more likely to invest in brand building.
Leaders who believe in creativity have an impact on their company’s KPIs:
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67% above-average organic revenue growth
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70% above-average total return to shareholders
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74% above-average net enterprise value
Sources: State of Creativity 2024, LIONS Advisory, Forrester, McKinsey and Deloitte
Who is this course for?
For creatives
Gain knowledge on how to evaluate creative ideas, learning directly from leaders who have awarded the industry’s best at Cannes Lions.
Learn tools, techniques and ideas to inspire your creativity and ensure it’s effective.
Understand how to become a true creative leader and help your teams push the boundaries of their work on every single brief.
Create the most important brief of your career – the ‘ME Brief’. Helping you structure your career goals and use the course’s content to meet them.
For strategists
Learn tools and frameworks to recognise game-changing creative ideas and establish a common language with your creative agencies and partners.
Understand the conditions for creative success and learn how to build a culture of creativity in your team with the right processes and structures.
Gain insight on how to use creativity to drive impact in your marketing programmes and prove the value of creative marketing in the boardroom.
Create the most important brief of your career – ‘the ME Brief’. Helping you structure your career goals and use the course’s content to meet them.
Why learn with LIONS?
We’ve been supporting the next generation of talent by running Academies and learning programmes at Cannes Lions for nearly 20 years.
During that time, our Academies have provided emerging talent with the creative expertise, confidence and skills needed to elevate their work.
2000+
Graduates have passed through the Cannes Lions School Campus doors since 2003
74%
of Graduates went on to secure a promoted role
How the course is delivered
Interactive
A modular digital learning course and live programme.
Spanning 10 weeks, including an onboarding week to start and a reading week in the middle.
Each week, there are typically:-
90 minutes of live discussion – a weekly Q&A where industry experts and some of the world's most awarded creative minds can answer questions from the cohort.
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Up to 6 hours of insights, expertise and examples of award-winning creativity from the brands and creatives who made it.
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A bespoke reel of edited stage presentations and winning work, pulled from over 2400 Talks and 250,000 creative case studies. Bringing to life the topics you’ll learn about in every module.
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Meeting time with your Anchor, a person you'll identify as the key part of your support system throughout the course.
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The ‘You’re on the Jury’ experience. You’ll discuss your views with your cohort, and then you’ll hear from Jury Presidents as they reveal the decisions and debates they had about the work they awarded.
What makes the LIONS cMBA different from other courses out there?
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The ‘You’re on the Jury’ experience. Where you’ll be able to assess Lion-winning work and hear exclusively from Jury Presidents who awarded it. Expect to learn what makes that work impactful, and why it’s the benchmark for excellence.
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The ‘Me Brief’, the most important brief of your career. This will help you structure your career goals, and every week, we’ll prompt you to reflect on how the course is meeting them.
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Learning from the most awarded creatives and marketers in the world who have won – and awarded – Lions.
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Curated collections of Lion-winning work and Talks from Cannes Lions, Spikes Asia, Dubai Lynx and Eurobest via The Work – our intelligence platform that you’ll have access to for the duration of the course.
Why choose the LIONS cMBA?
Certified by LIONS: LIONS’ reputation as the benchmark setter for creative excellence is recognised around the world. By completing the LIONS cMBA with us, you’ll have a badge of honour that indicates you’ve learnt with the very best – and that you can apply those learnings to your own work.
Learning principles: The LIONS cMBA learning approach and methodology are based on principles that make learning stick – and applicable in daily practice. Professional learning happens best when lessons can be used directly, and the programme is designed to run parallel to your work life.
Tutor expertise: Learn from the world’s best award-winning creatives. Each cohort is led by a different industry leader, all with extensive experience in the advertising and marketing communications industry, with a proven track record of impactful creativity and positive leadership.
Community for life: The setup allows participants to interact with others on the course and collaboratively discuss assignments based on The Work – the home of award-winning creative excellence. In short, you’re encouraged to build a peer network while you learn.
The Anchor: A person you can discuss your learnings with inside work hours – for a better chance at productive reflection and more effective goal setting.
“Attending the Cannes Lions Academy has been more valuable than the four years I spent at university, hands down.”
Darrien Case, Creative Academy alumnus
Cannes Lions
Learn more about the LIONS cMBA:
Transform your career.
Learning opportunities from LIONS offer a blend of theory and practical elements from globally-known practitioners
– leaving you ready to progress your career in creativity.
The Course (and any Course Materials) is not accredited by any university or accreditation body. If you need an official course credit, this programme may not be the right option at this time.